The final outcome_Videos

The final outcome_European man

The final outcome_African boy

The final outcome_Asian woman

 

Painting for the major work

 

Moving Image

Painting with Pastels

Colour, social perceptions and prejudices

Colour is one of the most important factors to characterise our culture and society. According to research of Fishbein, a young child named Jane has portrayed her friends who are different races and it can be clearly seen that she has very similarly drawn the girls appearances such as hairstyle, stature and clothes except their skin colour. Even though I could not see the girl’s features, they probably do not have exactly same appearances. It possibly shows that colour is very essential element to be characteristic of people. Furthermore, skin colour certainly has restricted people’s rights and forms negative prejudice about them. Terkildsen states that “black candidates with darker skin pigments may be evaluated more negatively than black politicians with lighter skin colour particularly when seeking higher status office or seats in predominantly white electoral districts.”

In the same way, some people tend to avoid and reject albinos with social perceptions and prejudices. For example, Pullan family are the largest family with albinism in the world and are currently living in India. Unfortunately, they are not accepted to others and they have been struggling and feel isolated, because they have very different skin colour with other normal Indians. Moreover, they cannot easily find jobs and people who may marry them. For this reason, the father is the only person who has a job and they married with another person with albinism. There is another example of harsh life of people with albinism. Some people used Negro albinos as their entertainment in the past. According to Martin, “normal people held shows and the owner dyed the hair of albino African American and dressed them in oriental costume to pass as Circassian Beauties.” They traded on scarcity of Negro albinos’ skin colour in order to make money. I have focused on this relationship between colour and social perceptions which is caused by differences with others. Accordingly, I produced the final outcome to highlight this contrast of skin colour.  

Life of People with albinism

 There are many incredible facts of people with albinism and these are one of the most important reasons why I choose albinos as the theme of this project. Life of people with albinism sometimes seems to be tougher than any other minorities because of their appearance. According to McAllister and Dubis at all, “albinism is an inherited disorder of melanin biosynthesis, associated with absent or reduced melanin pigment in the eye, and often in the skin and hair.” Owing to this, people with the condition have very unique and extraordinary external features and the medical issues could cause seriously low eye vision and skin cancer. Because of this, many people with albinism are lacking in education and suffering from a seriously high doctor’s fees. It also often forces to get a low-wages job under the equatorial sun. As a result, many people with albinism tend to die at a very young age and to live in extreme poverty. Furthermore, albinism causes low eye vision.

 

  Moreover, Mass media and pop culture usually portray a negative image of people with albinism often called “Evil Albinos” because of the peculiar properties of this disease affecting a physical appearance. Therefore, the term “albino” is frequently used in hurtful ways by people. As Baker, Lund and Taylor state, the myths surrounding albinism have heavily influenced the life of people with the condition and intrude on their education, marriage and employment. Many populations of albinos are unemployed and often rejected for jobs because of the condition. In addition, unfortunately the prejudice and persecution toward people with albinism in Africa seem to be more intense than other regions, because the difference of an outward appearance is highly contrasted. Owing to this, many African albinos suffering from these myths and taboos have been murdered and killed. For example, body parts of people with the condition are used to make potions thought to bring good luck in Tanzania.

People with albinism

                                              

  There are many different types of people who constitute a community and social groups are divided into a majority and a minority in accordance with their social power. Many minority groups are placed at the lowest point of social structure even though social policies and systems tend to be tolerant to a minority of people. It obviously seems that life of people with albinism suffer from physical disease and others’ prejudices surrounding them.

 

  Although People with the condition have unique appearances because of albinism, they are also ordinary people who just have a rare disease. Many people do not think that left-handed people are abnormal, because people understand them to be naturally born that way. However, some people often shun albinos, because of wrong social recognition. Therefore, this project has been under taken with the aim to break the prejudice of people with albinism and helps people to know that they are also ordinary PEOPLE. This project has been progressed to help the people with artworks.